Elephant Hill - Friday Pics

[DansZJ]

As Dave mentioned in his Day 1 thread, Elephant Hill very memorable/eventful. We were have a great day, made it through the first half of our day without any breakage, or other problems. We stopped for lunch at the Joint Trail parking lot. While hiking up the .6 miles (I still think it was 6 miles!) the wreckage of a downed cesena was found. It looked like a movie prop, or something - and didn't seem real at all. Still doesn't. But it was real. Bryant and his wife Erica hiked back to his Jeep to CB out for rescue. After running into some hikers, it was shared with us that a woman had witnessed the crash and hiked back to get help. This was approximately 2 hours before we got there. We had children with our group and they were shielded from the site, and we continued on to the joint. While walking back to the trail head, we saw a search plane circle down and around the site.
We made our way back to the Grands, and then made our way to the Confluence trail. We ran into a forest service employee and gave him the coordinates as he hadn't heard of the incident. They were also going to call in rescue via their satellite phone.
We made our way to the confluence trail and hiked up to the overlook. After the short break there (it was getting late) we headed back out when Ken's radiator decided to pop the tank from the crimps. It had literally burst open and push the crimps open. Ken, his dad and Bryan managed to pull the radiator out, and remove the tank. They spread the crimps out, cleaned it up, added some seals-all to the rubber gasket, and then put it back together. Plenty of bailing wire was used as well, but when they filled it back up, it held. So we drove out, stopping several times to check that it was leaking. He was able to get up and over elephant hill, and drive it back 74 miles to Moab.
While Ken's Jeep was being repaired, A Forest Ranger came up behind us. He confirmed that the wreckage was found and the bodies extracted. This gave us more piece of mind.
I have to give thanks to everyone who went along, and helped with the repair, and stayed even when we offered to split the group up to get you back early. More importantly, for keeping your spirits up considering everything.

Out of respect for the men who passed, and their families, I am asking that we don't post photos of the wreckage.

Here are my pics of the day.
http://picasaweb.google.com/DansZJ/G...hantHillFriday

[Matt]

Nice pics. Sucks to hear about the crash, sorry you guys had to see that, but nice job moving on and making the most of the day. I've had friends pass away in accidents like that and it's not something you'd ever want to see.

Ron was telling me about the place with the cairns, looks cool. I'll have to make my way down there sometime.

[K2]

I uploaded most of them. I really only have this trail. I really want to thank each and everyone of you who were on the trail with me that day. Special thanks to Dan for leading us, great job. Bryan for fixing my radiator. I wish I bought a KOR radiator support! What are the odds that someone would have so much experience doing that? And a special thanks to my dad who flew from NY to there with me and was never down about our situation. He kept looking to the positive and kept us both moving forward for the rest of the weekend.

Also if you have any pics of the repairs please send them to me. I have an idea for a fathers day gift for my dad.

Bryan the man who saved my ass


What he was working with


Some of the rigs







All of the rigs



scenery